Pretty Woman: the end had to be much more tragic

The cult film “Pretty Woman” by Garry Marshall with Julia Roberts and Richard Gere holds many secrets. Back to the end which should have been much more tragic in which Vivian’s fairy tale ended abruptly.

Pretty Woman: A Modern Fairy Tale

Released on French screens in November 1990, Pretty Woman tells the story of a wealthy businessman, Edward Lewis (Richard Gere) who crosses paths with a prostitute, Vivian (Julia Roberts), one evening on Hollywood Boulevard. First paying her for one night, he finally decides to conclude a deal to impersonate his girlfriend for an entire week.

These two beings who were not made to meet will gradually learn to discover and fall in love with each other until this famous happy ending where Edward declares his love for her like a fairy tale prince.

Richard Gere and Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman © Disney

An end that was to be tragic

Before becoming the cult romantic comedy we all know, Pretty Woman was a very dark drama titled “3,000“(related to the sum of the deal between Edward and Vivian editor’s note) and was nothing out of a fairy tale. During a interview, Julia Roberts had indeed stated that the original script which she had read and signed JF Lawton hardly offered a happy ending for her character since Edward cast Vivian out of his car at the end of the week :

He threw the money at her and left her all alone in a seedy street

In addition to that, at a meeting for the 25th anniversary of the filmthe team had revealed that the character of Luca’s Kit (the best friend of Vivan editor’s note) died of an overdose. Not very happy ending all that…

Disney saved the movie (and the career of Julia Roberts)

After the bankruptcy of the studio which was to produce the film only a few days after Julia Roberts landed the role, Disney picked up the script and totally revamped it under the guidance of Garry Marshallwhich did not fail to surprise the main interested party:

I didn’t understand how a script like that could end up at Disney. I even wondered if they were going to make a cartoon of it

Lucky for Julia Roberts, Garry Marshall agreed to meet her to present the new script called Pretty Woman instead of re-auditioning :

I think he agreed to meet me because he was a fantastic human being and he thought that since I had the audition the first time, it was normal to see me at least once .

And history can only prove him right!